Is it true to say that timing is everything?
No, it is not true to say that timing is everything, because once you start thinking that timing is everything, you will stop seeking, searching. You will simply wait for the spring to come, you will become absolutely unaware of the fact that for enlightenment no season is right or wrong, no climate is right or wrong. Every moment is right; you just have to catch hold of your own being. But it has been said even by Gautam Buddha that timing is needed.
I want you to know that Gautam Buddha is simply trying to console those who cannot gather courage in this moment. He does not want to discourage them by saying, “You will never become enlightened.” He is saying, “You will become enlightened, just wait for the time, for the ripening, for the cause.”
But I say unto you, in spite of Gautam Buddha, that no timing is needed, no causation is needed, because you are already enlightened. It is just that you are afraid to declare it, you are just afraid of what people will say . . . “I am enlightened? People will laugh, they will say, ‘Look at this fellow, he is enlightened.’”
Every day Neelam brings news to me that somebody is creating trouble, walking naked in the ashram because he thinks he has become enlightened. But just walking naked has nothing to do with enlightenment.
One woman was declaring herself a master and one man declaring his enlightenment – and both are cuckoos. So I told Neelam, “It is better to put both the cuckoos together.” The woman has been declaring herself for almost fifteen years. I said, “Neelam, tell the woman that if she is really a master and enlightened, take care of this fellow. He is very new, needs care.” And that fellow is a much bigger cuckoo.
The woman was cured. She said, “I am no more . . . he is too much. I take my words back that I am enlightened or I am a master . . . If this man has to be taken care of, I refuse. I will be simple from now onwards.” And for three, four days she has proved simple. The greater cuckoo managed to make the smaller cuckoo silent. Now Neelam was asking me what to do with the remaining cuckoo. I said, “Simply wait, somebody will be coming who is bigger. Give this one into his charge and tell him, ‘Here is your first disciple.’ There is no other way.”
And then Anando told the enlightened man that, “You either be silent and stop disturbing other people or you will be given to a greater cuckoo.” For at least one and a half days he has been behaving silently, just being afraid, because here there are so many potential cuckoos! I have even told Neelam to make a special office and department where cuckoos meet and discuss their enlightenment.
Enlightenment is not something that you have to shout on the streets, enlightenment is your recognition of your silent inner flame. It will make you saner, not a cuckoo; it will even help create a certain energy field around you which can trigger other people to enlightenment. But you don’t have to be a nuisance. You cannot force anybody to enlightenment. You can kill someone, that is not difficult, but even dead he will remain unenlightened. Enlightenment is not something that can be done from outside.
But from the outside, situations can be created, devices can be created in which suddenly you become aware of your own self. The master himself, his presence, is nothing but a situation; those who are thirsty will draw water from the well. But the thirst has to be authentic; otherwise, people go on standing by the side of the well, thirsty, and their thirst is either intellectual or just a curiosity to know what this enlightenment is. It has to be a tremendously powerful longing in you, a very life and death question – then there is no barrier, then there is no timing.
So even though it goes against Gautam Buddha’s statement, I will not say that you have to wait for tomorrow. Do it now, this is the time!
-Osho
From This. This. A Thousand Times This: The Very Essence of Zen, Discourse #10
Copyright © OSHO International Foundation
An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.
Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.
YES- this